Sports events around the world hit by coronavirus pandemic

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(Reuters) - Major sports events around the world that have been hit by the coronavirus pandemic:

FILE PHOTO: Olympics - Olympic Flame - Panathenaic Stadium, Athens, Greece - March 14, 2020 The Japanese national flag waves next to an altar with the Olympic flame of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, following the cancellation of the torch relay as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

OLYMPICS

* The Tokyo 2020 Olympics torch lighting ceremony in ancient Olympia was held without spectators.

* The Olympic Games flame handover in Athens will be done in an empty stadium on March 19.

* The Hellenic Olympic Committee suspended the remainder of the torch relay through Greece to avoid attracting crowds.

NORTH AMERICA

* The MLB further delayed its 2020 season’s opening day of March 26 after CDC calls for gatherings of 50 or more people to be cancelled or postponed for eight weeks.

* Boston Marathon organisers postpone the race from April 20 to Sept. 14.

* The National Hockey League has told players, including those from outside North America, they can return home and should self-quarantine through March 27, lengthening the period the NHL had said it was pausing its season.

* After postponing the Olympic trials, USA Wrestling discontinued all sanctioned events through April 6 and postponed national events through April 20.

SOCCER

* All elite soccer matches in England, including the Premier League, Football League and Women’s Super League, were suspended until April 4.

* Germany’s Bundesliga and second division will pause at least until April 2.

* The Bolivian Football Federation on Monday suspended all play until at least March 31.

* UEFA postponed all Champions League and Europa League matches due to take place between March 17-19.

* The Confederation of African Football postponed two rounds of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers (March 25-31).

* CONCACAF suspended all competitions, including the Champions League and men’s Olympic qualifiers.

* The top two tiers of French football — Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 — were suspended.

* All matches in Spain’s top two divisions were postponed for two weeks.

* England’s friendly internationals against Italy and Denmark at Wembley (March 27 and 31) will not take place.

* U.S. Major League Soccer suspended its season.

* All soccer in the Netherlands was suspended until the end of March.

* FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation agreed to postpone Asian World Cup qualifying matches in March and June.

* FIFA postponed South American qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup between March 23-31.

* Tickets are not being sold for the Euro 2020 qualifying playoff semi-finals between Bulgaria and Hungary, and Bosnia and Northern Ireland.

* Asian Champions League: Matches involving Chinese clubs Guangzhou Evergrande, Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai SIPG were postponed. The start of the knockout rounds was moved back to September.

* The Mexican soccer league said all matches in the top-flight, second tier and women’s league were suspended until further notice.

* The Brazilian football Confederation suspended all national competitions until further notice.

* The state championships of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, the two biggest in Brazil, were suspended on Monday, the former for 15 days and the latter until further notice.

AQUATICS

* FINA has cancelled all international water polo events over the next three months, including the 2020 FINA Men’s and Women’s Intercontinental Tournament scheduled for Indianapolis, Indiana on April 28-May 3.

ARCHERY

* International archery has been suspended until April 30, which will affect qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The Pan American Championships (March 23-29), Oceania Championships (April 5-9) and European Para Championships (April 18-26) were quota tournaments for the Olympics.

ATHLETICS

* The World Athletics Indoor Championships (Nanjing, March 13-15) were postponed. They will be held in the same city from March 19-21, 2021.

* The Paris and Barcelona marathons were postponed.

* The London marathon (April 26), was postponed to Oct. 4.

* The Penn Relays, set to be held from April 23-25, are cancelled for the first time in the track event’s 125-year history. The Mt. SAC Relays and Florida Relays, also scheduled for April, and the March Texas Relays, are all cancelled.

BASEBALL

* The final qualification tournament in Taiwan for the Olympics was put back from April to June 17-21, while the March 22-26 qualification event in Arizona was postponed.

* Japan’s professional league postponed the start of the season.

BASKETBALL

BOXING

* The European, American and final world qualifying boxing tournaments for the Tokyo Olympic Games were suspended on March 16. The IOC said the European qualifier in London that was already underway and due to run to March 24 would end after the evening session on March 17.

CRICKET

* The last two games of Australia’s three-match one-day international series against New Zealand in Sydney and Hobart were cancelled.

* Australia and New Zealand’s limited overs tours were postponed.

* The start of the Indian Premier League T20 tournament (March 29) was postponed until April 15.

* The boards of India and South Africa agreed to reschedule a three-match ODI series to a later date. The first match on March 12 was washed out.

* England’s two-match test series in Sri Lanka scheduled to start on March 19 was postponed.

* The final leg of Bangladesh’s tour of Pakistan, which involved a test match and an ODI in April, was postponed.

* Zimbabwe and Ireland agreed to postpone a six-match men’s series scheduled for Zimbabwe in April.

CYCLING

* Cycling’s governing body plans to retroactively use March 3 as the cut-off point for Olympic qualification in mountain bike, BMX Racing and BMX Freestyle.

* The final two stages of the UAE Tour were cancelled after two Italian participants tested positive.

* The Paris-Nice cycling race ended a day early after the eighth stage into Nice was cancelled.

* The Giro d’Italia, scheduled to start in Budapest, Hungary on May 9, was postponed.

GOLF

* The year’s first major, the Masters, was postponed from April 9-12 to “some later date”.

* The Players Championship in Florida was cancelled after the first round. The next three PGA events were also scrapped.

* The Honda LPGA Thailand event and the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore were cancelled.

* The next three LPGA Tour events scheduled for Arizona and California were postponed.

* The Indian Open, the Maybank Championship in Kuala Lumpur and the China Open were postponed.

GYMNASTICS

* The All-Around World Cup (Stuttgart; March 20-22) was cancelled.

HORSE RACING

* The Grand National festival due to be held from April 2 to April 4 has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Jockey Club said in a statement on Monday. [L8N2B9A0A]

ICE HOCKEY

* The Swedish Ice Hockey Association ended the 2019-20 season with no playoffs, no champions, no promotion and no relegation.

* The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) has declared a week-long break to create a new format for the second round of its playoffs involving six Russian teams.

Two non-Russian teams — Barys Nur-Sultan (Kazakhstan) and Jokerit Helsinki (Finland) — had withdrawn on government advice to fight the coronavirus in their countries.

JUDO

* The International Judo Federation cancelled all Olympic qualification events until the end of April.

MOTORSPORT

* Formula One cancelled the Australian Grand Prix and postponed the next three races in Bahrain, Vietnam and China.

They hope to start the season in Europe at the end of May, putting the Dutch and Spanish races currently scheduled for May 3 and 10 in Zandvoort and Barcelona in doubt.

* Four rounds of the MotoGP season in Qatar, Thailand, Texas and Argentina will not go ahead as scheduled.

* Round four of the World Rally Championship in Argentina (April 23-26) was postponed.

* The World Rallycross Championship opener in Catalunya-Barcelona (April 18-19) was postponed.

* Rally Mexico was cut short after the second leg.

* The seventh round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, scheduled for April 23-25 in Spa, Belgium, has been postponed.

PENTATHLON

* The rest of the modern pentathlon World Cup season was postponed until May.

ROWING

* Two World Rowing Cups and the European Olympic Qualification Regatta, all scheduled for Italy, were cancelled.

* The annual Boat Race competition, set for March 29 on the River Thames in London, has been cancelled. [L8N2B9A0A]

RUGBY

* Four Six Nations matches were postponed.

* The Singapore and Hong Kong legs of the World Rugby Sevens Series were postponed from April to October.

* Rugby Europe announced a suspension of all its matches and tournaments from March 13-April 15.

* France’s rugby federation suspended all its competitions.

* The European rugby season was suspended after the governing body, European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR), postponed the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup quarter-final matches scheduled for April 3-5.

* England’s Premiership Rugby season has been suspended for five weeks, while England’s Rugby Football Union (RFU) suspended all rugby activity until April 14.

* The English Rugby Football League and the Super League have suspended all fixtures until April 3.

* Super Rugby has suspended its season.

* Rugby Australia locked down its headquarters to be disinfected after two members of the national rugby sevens programme were tested for the virus.

* South Africa Rugby suspended all national team training camps until April 14.

SAILING

* SailGP cancelled its San Francisco event (May 2-3).

TENNIS

* The ATP suspended its professional men’s tennis tour for six weeks after the Miami Open (March 23-April 5) was cancelled.

* The Fed Cup finals (Budapest; April 14-19) were postponed.

* The BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells was cancelled.

* The WTA Tour was suspended until May 2 and tournaments in Stuttgart, Istanbul and Prague will not be held as scheduled.

TRIATHLON

* The International Triathlon Union suspended all activity until April 30.